Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hey guys! you seem to be a smart and nice bunch of people, so i thought i'd go here to ask you a question, and maybe join the community :).
And oh, first post!

Now the thing is i have 3 BenQ G2220HD Screens, with VGA and DVI on them.
i have them connected to my Gigabyte 5970 like this:

left screen: DVI-D cable
Middle screen: minidp-dp dp-dvi and then a DVI-D cable
Right screen: DVI-D cable

now my problem is that i can only activate 2 of these screens at the same time. All of the screens can be activated just not at the same time.
Any thoughts on why this happens? And how to make it work? i would prefer to not buy an active adapter or buy a DP screen, as i had 1 screen from before and bought 2 more.
Yeah i know, i went in hotheaded without planning, and ended up busting my balls :oops:

Any ideas?

P.S. could it be because of my old MB? K9N SLI platinum ( i have new RAM+MB+CPU ordered :D )

passive adapter for DP to DVI = will not work.

You could try something like the apple minidisplayport to VGA adapter and see if that works.

if monitor dont have display port you need active DVI adapter or (DP @ VGA) adapter

Okey, thanks, will any dp-vga work?
or do i need a specific one?

Just to consolidate info for you, like others have said, you need an active displayport adapter for DVI. It needs to be powered by an external source, which I believe is always a USB plug. Here is an example:



Now, here's the problem. It seems at this point these adapters are fickle at best, so while you're spending ~$100, sometimes they don't work quite right. The Sapphire adapter I ordered from newegg was defective. Sometimes problems can be solved with a flash bios of your GPU, sometimes not.

If you don't need the digital signal, I would recommend the DP>VGA adapter. I got mine at monoprice:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042801&p_id=5135&seq=1&format=2

It's cheaper, and according to what I've observed, it seems to work for more people than the DVI. It took some work, but I was able to get it working relatively easy (at least compared to the time I spent with my DVI adapter). Also, people seem to report more flickering issues with the DVI adapter. With native DP monitors it seems to rarely happen (although it does occasionally), the VGA adapter seems to flicker for me every few hours. If I am using the computer all day, I might get flickers 4 times throughout the day. The DVI one is reported to do it about every 15 minutes or so? Depend on who you speak to.

Well, here i am back again.
Anyways i went and bought myself an apple active adapter, and before u say its shit and such, i could just return it the day after (the store is a 3 min walk from my school)
Interestingly enough i have had NO problems yet whatsoever, no flicker, no black screens no anything. So i am quite pleased :)

So, the amd validated dongles list is just pure BS?
Anyways, have u guys got some games to recommend? :D

P.S: Sorry for my incredibly bad spelling, ive got a really bad morning :P

Ziv

So, the amd validated dongles list is just pure BS?

Kinda. I think the non-active ones will work for certain lower resolutions. But I think if you have 3x~1080p or higher (I could be wrong) then you need the active one.

Anyways, have u guys got some games to recommend? :D

Farmville. Jk.

Dragon Age, Modern Warfare 2, Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead 1+2 (and almost every other Valve game), and the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator are all so far good candidates. Current games to avoid are Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2. ME2 is supposed to have a patch to fix it, and Bioshock 2 is getting a widescreen fix, but not necessarily Eyefinity support.

P.S: Sorry for my incredibly bad spelling, ive got a really bad morning :P

Ziv

You are not forgiven. 10 lashes will suffice.